Whats the conference about?

We all agree that students learn best when they are strongly motivated. Most of us agree, too, that motivation is best stimulated in an environment which is open and flexible, which encourages innovation, which is, in a word, creative. And yet many of us find that such an environment is increasingly difficult to maintain. In an audit-driven culture, with its emphasis on targets, room for exploration constantly contracts. The demands of assessment (Sternbergs tyranny of testing), increasing student numbers, the RAE and a growing administrative burden only exacerbate these problems.

The conference will focus on how these tensions affect higher education: its organisational cultures and its teaching and learning practices alike. Through sharing experience, it will discover practical methods of promoting creative learning in the face of increasingly stringent economic, legislative, and pedagogic constraints. And, more strategically, it will help us develop ways of influencing policy in this area.

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Please note

This site has been restored from a backup made before the conference programme was finalised, and so may not represent all changes made in the final programme. Please alert us to any discrepancies you find.

Whos the conference for?

Contributors and delegates are invited from every discipline and every area of responsibility in higher education. Educators, researchers, managers, institutional leaders, policy-makers, funders, practitioners, research students and consultants are all expected to take part. Although hosted by a school of art and design, the conference could not be more catholic. Speakers include specialists in education, psychology, biology, engineering, literature, health and sociology. But they also straddle traditional academic boundaries and are known for their inspirational and eclectic approaches to the issue of creativity.

What will be the outcomes of the conference?

All accepted abstracts and papers will be published on the conference website.

A selection of peer-reviewed conference papers will be published in a special issue of a leading HE journal.

Most importantly, the conference will see the establishment of a cross-disciplinary network, aimed at maintaining and extending the Cardiff initiative and working for the long-term promotion of creativity across the curriculum. This network will start as a delegate discussion forum, to be set up on this website in September 2006.

What will it cost?

The conference fees are as follows:

Full Rate

Student Rate

1 Day

£170

£100

2 Days

£260

£175

3 Days

£360

£250

Student rates are made available through the award of Higher Education Academy bursaries. The fee covers all sessions; bus between hotels and campus; tea, coffee and lunch on all three days; dinner on 8 January; and the evening social event and entertainment on 9 January. Accommodation and breakfasts are not included. Click here for accommodation options. Click here for full registration details.

Key Dates

2006

15 May: registration opens

17 July: deadline for abstracts

18 August: confirmation of acceptance of abstracts

16 October: deadline for receipt of papers for presentation and publication at conference